Assorted Drabbles and Shorts
by elicitillicit
Summary: This is a collection of short stories that have originally been posted on Tumblr. I'll be adding to this as I write. [Rare pairs/Dramione/Lucissa/Ginsy/etc.]
1. All Organic (MF)

**Pairing: Draco Malfoy x Hermione Granger (Dramione)**  
 **Setting: Coffeeshop AU**  
 **Written for: Cocoartist's birthday**

* * *

To be completely honest, Hermione applies to work at _Brew Glory_ because the décor is perfect.

There are freshly cut flowers in big glass vases littered strategically around the repurposed shophouse. The paintings on the walls look _curated_. The floor is a sheet of perfectly even cement and the tables and chairs are hewn out of reclaimed wood. Everything is bright and airy and beautifully industrial with a touch of home and they make patrons pay $13 for a pot of tea, so _really_. Hermione is not ashamed when she admits to listening to enough _Fleet Foxes, the xx_ ,and _DCFC_ to be considered part of the local college hipster community.

Also, she kind of _really_ needs a job, because her parents are _upper middle class but not_ _ **that**_ _upper middle class, darling_ , and this is the only place within sprinting distance from the campus library that's hiring.

The manager, a tall black senior from the business school, eyes her dubiously as she slides her résumé across the table. "I don't see how winning best delegate in three high school Model UN conferences and getting 2400 on the SATs qualifies you to make coffee."

"It shows commitment and _excellent_ memory," Hermione offers. "Furthermore, I can bake a variety of sugar-free cakes and pastries that are fully organic and don't taste like shit."

The manager glances around the bustling coffee shop, eyes lingering on the two _clearly_ overworked baristas manning the counter. She can pinpoint the exact moment when he caves and figures that it probably doesn't matter what her coffee tastes like, because _Brew Glory_ attracts its clientele on the strength of it being so damn _pretty_.

He hands her a denim apron trimmed with faux leather and tells her to report at three the next day.

* * *

Orientation involves herding her into the tiny kitchen where she is told that she is to bake at least one sugar-free cake every two days, teaching her how to use the cash register, and introducing her to the other two baristas on duty: an effervescent varsity cheerleader and her bitchier sorority sister.

They skirt around the eight thousand dollar coffee machine that sits, gleaming and spotlighted, in the centre of the long counter space.

The manager – whose name is _Blaise_ – gravely informs her that the coffee machine is largely _Draco_ 's responsibility. She is _not_ to touch it until Draco says that she can, because _Draco will know; Draco always knows_ , and she will only learn how to make coffee _after_ Draco has walked her through its maze of knobs and levers and is convinced that she will not destroy the coffee shop's golden goose.

 _Draco_ is apparently the owner of this entire business – or, rather, his _father_ , who owns a chain of ridiculously trendy restaurants in LA, does – and he only does the evening shifts. Hermione jokingly inquires if he is, in fact, a vampire, but then the bitchy sorority girl scoffs audibly. She fights the urge to throw a bag of coffee filters at her and retreats into the kitchen to start sifting flour. There's enough time to get a sugarless lemon drizzle pound cake into the oven before this _Draco_ person turns up to start her on her hipster barista career proper.

* * *

It turns out that she already knows who _Draco_ is.

Harry has been bitching for _weeks_ about the smarmy, arrogant, inbred motherfucker in his classes who casually critiques _every single fucking point of law_ – _purely academic_ , Harry mimics sourly – and never misses an opportunity to shove his prep school education in everyone's face.

She and Ron had made all the requisite noises, scrolled through Malfoy's Facebook profile and dutifully called him a dipshit, and then taken Harry out for pizza.

So Hermione is quite aware that Malfoy is a jackass to the _nth_ degree, and by the unspoken laws of Friendship in General, she should be punching him in the face before dramatically quitting her new job.

But, because she is twenty-one years old and a first year medical student who is sinking deeper and deeper into debt, she makes a mental note to discourage Harry and Ron from visiting her new workplace in the evenings and joins Draco Malfoy at the coffee machine.

He's tall and almost _distressingly_ blonde and attractive in a polished, polo-shirt wearing kind of way, but three seconds into meeting him, Hermione can see why Harry has been driven to plotting actual murder.

He scowls at her hair and her oversized linen pants and blithely informs her that they have an _image_ to uphold, so he'd appreciate it if she looks less _Homeless in Harlem_ and more _Gentrified Greenwich Village_. He asks if she wears her retainers _regularly_ , and sniffs when she tells him that as a child of two exceedingly facetious dentists, her teeth are _perfect_. He calls Blaise over, expresses disappointment over how he hadn't been involved in the hiring process at his _own_ coffee shop, and tuts over the battered résumé that Blaise had chucked under a pile of old waffle makers.

Blaise throws her a look from over Malfoy's shoulder that reads _please just roll with it; I really need to keep you_ , and Hermione refrains from doing the aforesaid _punching her new boss in the face and dramatically quitting her job_.

Malfoy eventually balls her résumé up, tosses it into a corner, and glides over to his coffee machine. "I'm only saying this once," he threatens, and Blaise sighs the sigh of the long-suffering and disappears into the kitchen.

And then, Malfoy launches into an incredibly intense tutorial on how to brew the perfect cup of coffee.

Hermione struggles to keep her expression neutral, because nothing about roasting beans or cleaning out coffee grounds should be funny, but she hasn't seen anybody this passionate about something since freshman year, when she'd snuck into Professor Snape's postgraduate chemistry lecture (which had, towards the end, devolved into him striding up and down the front of the lecture hall, muttering about alchemy).

And a Draco Malfoy _this_ passionate about _coffee_ isn't at all annoying.

It's… cute?

"You need to take _pride_ in every cup, Granger," he's saying fervently as he churns out a sample cup for her. "Every sip should taste like an essence of effort distilled into _gold_."

She has no idea what he's talking about, but she takes the cup and sips from it dutifully.

It's good, but she really wouldn't call it _an essence of effort distilled into gold_. She _does_ , however, see why people would pay eight dollars for it in the early mornings.

She makes a double macchiato and Malfoy doesn't spit it out.

She's officially hired.

* * *

Hermione starts taking the busy afternoon shifts with Daphne the cheerleader, who begins sneaking expensive European conditioner into her bag along with _Zalora_ vouchers. Pansy, who is far less tactful, tells her that there is a _difference_ between being artfully grungy and looking like she's wearing her father's jeans.

She gets the hint and bullies Harry's girlfriend into going shopping with her. Ginny tends to lean towards the whole _Nike Flyknits with sundresses_ aesthetic, but she's also spent her entire life dredging through bargain bins and taking a needle to someone else's clothes, so she knows a thing or two about what looks good on a body.

Malfoy comes in for his shift one day and stares at her while she takes off her apron before muttering that she doesn't look too bad in the yellow shift dress she's got on. Blaise sniggers and Pansy lifts her eyes to the heavens and Daphne asks him if he intends to close his mouth any time this century, and Hermione feels _very_ smug when she exits and he's still squinting after her.

He starts coming in earlier and entertains himself by engaging her in conversations about Donald Trump and laughing at her rising fury. He discusses the _Black Lives Matter_ movement through the lens of social media with surprising insight and delicacy, so she almost _doesn't_ want to reach over and strangle him when he concludes, completely deadpan, that _all_ lives matter.

Harry and Ron come in to surprise her one day at work, and Malfoy is in _such_ a good mood from lounging around the counter taking pot shots at Hermione's stance on gun control laws that he only makes _one_ crack at how Ron is probably unable to afford his coffee.

Hermione pretends not to see Daphne quietly giving Ron a discount. Malfoy is too busy watching her carefully measuring out coffee beans to notice.

* * *

Malfoy gathers them together after a month for _employee bonding_ , which involves sitting around at one of the tables after closing time with leftover cake and decaf coffee. He's read in one of his father's self-help business books that the key to a thriving company is in _knowing both one's employees and one's clients_ , so he's gotten people to participate in a raffle. The prize is a bag of _kopi luwak_ , and Hermione does not envy anyone who wins it, but some people take coffee _really seriously_.

People like Malfoy, who can order a _schlong_ with a straight face.

("Why can't you just call it a _short black_?" she'd asked once, after a group of frat boys had stumbled in and ordered, extremely loudly, _eight schlongs, and make them all extra large_.

Pansy, engrossed in detailing the windows of the empire state building in the foam on top of a flat white, hadn't looked up. "It's the novelty factor," she'd mumbled around a breath. "People order things just so that they get the thrill of saying something a class of grade six boys would find uproariously funny.")

Either way; Malfoy is now adding a shot of liquor into everybody's cup while inquiring _if you were a cup of coffee, what would you be?_

"Hot," Pansy smirks. Malfoy rolls his eyes.

Daphne, who'd modelled for Abercrombie and Fitch in high school, resignedly refers to herself as a _flat white_.

Hermione chokes, and Blaise thumps her good-naturedly on the back before affirming that he would be a long black.

"You think very highly of yourself," Malfoy huffs, but Blaise just grins.

He then turns to her, and Hermione tries not to get distracted by how the shadows cast by the low (stupidly artistic!) hanging jar above them make his cheekbones look _glorious_. "A latte, I guess."

Malfoy tugs her coffee from her to make it more Irish before she can protest.

"Don't be boring!" he chastises, and is she imagining how his fingertips linger against hers as he passes her back her cup? "A affogato? Ristretto? Insomnia? That's four shots of ristretto. Very helpful for finals week," he assures her.

Hermione shudders. Four shots of ristretto during finals week sounds like a health hazard waiting to happen.

"What do you like best about working here?" Malfoy presses, and out of the corner of her eye, she notes that Pansy has sat back, a little put out at the fact that Malfoy is _clearly_ only addressing her.

She takes an uneasy sip of her coffee – it's _really_ quite alcoholic; Malfoy did _not_ stinge on the liquor. "Your interior decorator is a genius," she says evasively, and is a little surprised when Pansy snorts and says _thanks_.

Malfoy, however, barrels on. "What else?"

On her left, Blaise downs his coffee like a shot and reaches – very unsubtly – for his jacket.

"Um. The coffee really is quite good."

"And?"

"It's really convenient to get to from campus."

"And?"

Daphne is pouring the rest of her coffee into a to-go cup. Pansy is emptying hers into the sink. Hermione feels a little trapped, but also _not_ trapped, if you know what she means?

" _And_?" He pushes, and she misses the other three employees sidling out the back door.

"Um," Hermione breathes, suddenly hyperaware of how broad Malfoy's shoulders are and how straight his nose is. Why would she ever want to break it?

Malfoy is clearly still waiting for an answer.

"You're not a _complete_ dick," she blurts out, and Malfoy recoils as if he's been slapped.

"I mean, I thought you'd be," she explains, and she can barely hear herself through the blood pounding in her ears. "Harry says you're an asshole, and you do say _really offensive things_ but I don't know if you even actually mean them half the time or if you're just saying them to get a rise – and – but you're funny? When you're being nasty? And adorable when you talk about coffee? You have a _face_? Oh my _god._ "

Malfoy, who has been looking steadily more confused but flattered, barely catches the coffee cup that she thrusts at him before she stands up hastily enough to jostle the table. "Bye!" she squeaks, and flees before she can lose the job that puts her in daily contact with a person that she would otherwise _never_ see.

* * *

The next day, Hermione's common sense eventually wins out over her cowardice and she puts on her fancy new skinny jeans (they make her ass look _phenomenal_ , Ginny _promised_ ), holds her head up high, and goes to work.

Malfoy's already there, lounging against the counter, and he hands her a steaming tulip cup of coffee. "It's a double ristretto topped with milk," he tells her conversationally.

She takes an experimental sip, and tries to tell herself that it's the _coffee_ that's warming her cheeks and not the concentrated fascination that she can read in his eyes. "What's it called?"

His smile is slow and warm and jolts every nerve ending that she has into action. "Magic."


	2. Secret Keeper (MF)

**Pairing: Dudley Dursley x Alicia Spinnet**  
 **Setting: Post War**  
 **Written for: provocative-envy**

* * *

It starts in a dodgy little pub on football night.

It's only ten o'clock, but half his weekend rugby team is already smashed from taking bets on the wrong team and the other half is just – unaccountably _loud_. Dudley looks around the dimly lit, _man's man_ space, wonders at the state of the washroom, and firmly resolves to get out of there before he needs to take a piss.

Timmins plonks a pint of beer in front of him, and sneers good-naturedly when Dudley shakes his head apologetically. "I dunno what you're on about, mate; the _dad bod_ is _trendy,_ now, innit?"

He sighs. Getting his BMI down to the _healthy_ range was truly a fucking torturous exercise and he wasn't going to blow it on empty calories. His teammate laughs and takes a swig. "You should be getting _out there_ , Dudders. Prowling the night. Picking up chicks. Not moping over – I don't fucking know, you've been in a period of permanent _mope_ since I've known you."

Dudley scrunches up his nose – that's not exactly _true_ , but he can't really remember the last time that he was actually _really_ happy, either.

"I mean, c'mon," Timmins continues, sloshing more beer over his hand as he gestures towards a darkened corner of the already dark bar. " _MacArthur_ was moping all week because he got _dumped_ last weekend, and now he's fine! Chatting up girls and everything!"

He wants to say that MacArthur is a dipshit of the highest degree, but he keeps quiet and looks anyway –

\- And he freezes when he sees MacArthur leaning into a girl who _clearly_ , _obviously_ is not into it; not into him. She's laughing, yes, but she's also got a hand on his chest and her muscles are tense and Dudley, Dudley who spent a childhood bullying small children and his smaller cousin and was generally an expert at _crowding into personal_ space, feels his blood run cold. He remembers screaming and darkness and _fear_ of something bigger and he stands, pushing his shoulders back, and makes his way to MacArthur and the girl.

"- I can buy my own f- my _own_ whisky, thank you, it's _fine_ ," the girl is saying, smile knife-sharp in her face whilst her eyes are dark and flinty. Dudley feels abruptly uneasy as MacArthur leans further into the girl and whispers into her ear, and then there is a jolt in his stomach when he sees the girl jerk her right hand – the hand not holding his drunken and stupid teammate away from her – ever so slightly.

Half an inch of a wooden stick slides out of her sleeve.

Dudley's last name is Dursley, but he is also half Evans and he was raised in a house with a mother who is exceptionally sharp and is terrifyingly good at uncovering secrets.

He hastily claps a hand on MacArthur's shoulder and hauls him away from the girl, pasting a jovial smile on his face.

"Timmins has _beer_ for you, mate," he says cheerfully, and moderates the well-meaning stupidity in his expression in response to MacArthur's scowl.

"I'm _busy_ , Dud-"

"Yeah, but girls will always be here when you get back, mm? Timmins might _finish_ your beer."

This gives MacArthur pause, and he leers at the girl before clapping Dudley on the shoulder and stumbling away towards the bar.

Dudley waits two and a half seconds before jerking his head towards the exit. The girl follows wordlessly as they climb a set of stairs that smell like the worst parts of the tube and emerge into a raucous Friday night in London. He nods to her, keeping an eye on her right sleeve, and begins to walk in the direction of the nearest bus stop.

"Wait!"

He doesn't expect her to catch up with him, keeping up with his wider strides and looking somewhere between petulant and furious. "I had that _covered._ "

"I know." Dudley keeps on walking.

"I didn't need you to waltz in there like a giant, fulfilling your stupid fucking white-knight quota for the year-"

Dudley halts, and so does she, eyes wide and startled as he stoops a little to look her in the eye. "I know."

And he knows, immediately, that she knows that he _knows_. She takes half a step back before squaring her shoulders and huffing a quiet " _Oh_." She doesn't ask why, or how, but offers him a half-smile. "Thanks. I'm Alicia, by the way."

He grunts an acknowledgment and resumes walking, fingers stuffed into the pockets of his jacket. "What were you _doing_ here, anyhow?" _What were you doing in_ our _side of London_ , he means, and she laughs.

"Watching football." It isn't until later (much later) that she admits that she can't really get muggle channels on her telly, because they can't afford to buy one that's warded against magical interference – which there is a _lot_ of in their flat because Katie tends to bring home her work from the charm bracelet store.

They reach the bus stop, and Dudley motions towards a quiet space between two buildings. "You can disappear over there."

Alicia shakes her head and plops down onto the bench after a surreptitious glance at it. "My flat is around here. I can wait for your bus with you." He shrugs and takes a seat, glaring mulishly out into the street whilst eyeing the girl beside him. "You don't really _talk_ much, do you?"

Dudley exhales heavily, and he thinks about explaining that he doesn't really know what to _say_ , christ, because she's party of _Harry_ 's world, and he'd wanted nothing to do with it, because it brought darkness and sadness and it had killed his aunt and his uncle and it had killed Harry twice, and _what is she doing here and why is she talking to me?_

"I'm Dudley," he blurts, looking at the concrete pavement and scuffing the toe of his sneakers against a crack. "Dudley Dursley."

She looks confused.

"Harry Potter's cousin," he elaborates, figuring that everyone should know Harry Potter.

Alicia's smile freezes for about half a second before it thaws. "Ah."

There is silence for about two minutes as Dudley contemplates the probability of the ground opening up to swallow him whole.

"I was Harry's quidditch teammate at school," Alicia says, twirling a braid around one of her fingers. "We fought during the War. He never mentioned you."

Dudley shrugs again, uncomfortable. "There isn't much to mention. We aren't close."

Alicia peers at him, eyes bright, and it feels as if she's peeling away the layers of his words to find the heart of them underneath. He feels both ashamed and free.

"Do you want to get some tea, sometime? We can work on your talking."

Dudley squints at her suspiciously. "You won't be reading the tea leaves or something, right?"

She laughs. "No. Divining the future is almost as useless as defining yourself by your past – at least, if you aren't the same person any more." She glances down at the spot that he's looking at, and he can see the fingers on her right hand curling back towards her sleeve. "At least, that's what I learned in the war."

Dudley feels something _unclench_ in his chest, and it's like he can finally fucking breathe since the last time he saw his cousin in his old house on Privet Drive, when they were running for their lives and he was waiting for his death – even if he hadn't known it. "Would you like to go for tea, now?"

* * *

 **A/N: I know I've lost all the reviews/favourites that I originally got on this by deleting and reposting it in this collection, but my need to have things categorised wins out over everything else.**


	3. Discovery Channel (MF)

**Pairing: Daphne Greengrass x Neville Longbottom  
Setting: College AU  
Written for: cocoartist **

* * *

Daphne, who is three-quarters drunk and a lot happy, inexplicably finds herself lying spread-eagled out in the grass ( _actual_ grass, and not weed, to her everlasting disappointment).

Pansy leans over her, nonplussed. "Why are you _sleeping_? We're at a _party_!"

Daphne blinks up at Pansy, wonders if she should ask if the look that her friend is going for is _Ke$ha_ with the fucking dollar sign or Taylor Swift in the _Blank Space_ video, and decides to make that decision while vertical.

That's when one of her cute new Jeffrey-Campbell-floral-cut-wedge-slide-sandals connects, unexpectedly, with something that says _"ouch_ ".

Not that that stops her from kicking it again – _ouch!_ – before finally clambering to her feet, hanging on to Pansy for balance. She scrutinises the thing on the ground, confused as to why someone _quite that almost naked_ is out here, in the middle of Draco's yard, where _all the people_ can see that he wears loud red briefs with cute little frogs on them. Her ability to articulate her _super articulate_ thoughts, however, had disappeared somewhere around her fourth inappropriately-named drink snagged from Blaise, and all she manages is: "You're on the ground."

Frog-briefs winces and struggles into a sitting position, rubbing the back of his head. "Yes. You tripped over yourself and I was collateral damage."

Daphne squints at him and notes that while he is seven-eighths starkers, he is also a lot sober. Which is weird, because usually everybody at Draco's house parties is drunk about an hour in. "Where are your clothes?" She asks, looking him over appraisingly. Even whilst kind of drunk and really hazy, she can appreciate nice and tall and – those are _abs_!

Frog-briefs, who has _clearly_ noticed where her eyes are going, blushes and coughs uncomfortably before pointing to the ridiculously ostentatious marble lawn ornament that Draco's dad commissioned when he got into Columbia. It's now sporting a pink plaid shirt, and one of its hands is threaded through a pant leg of a pair of khakis. "Crabbe and Goyle," he explains darkly. _Of-fucking-course_.

Daphne claps a hand over her mouth and giggles, which causes the world to spin and Pansy to hastily set her back down on the grass. "I'm going to get Theo –because I _cannot_ carry you back in by myself, _Daphne_ , I'm going to _stop_ buying you scones – so you will _stay here_ and _not move_ , OK? And _you_ ," here she turns to Frog-briefs, " _You do not touch her_ , or so help me fucking god I will find you and _ensure_ that there is not enough left of you to clothe."

Daphne waves cheerily at Pansy and leans back on her elbows, beaming at Frog-briefs, who is watching Pansy's retreating back with a look of complete terror.

"Don't worry," she informs him blithely. "She exaggerates. Want to make out?"

He chokes, and is saved from having to answer by the timely (or untimely, depending on how one looks at it) intervention of Hermione Granger, whom Daphne _really_ , just, _really_ wants to take out shopping.

" _Neville_ , oh my god, where are your – oh. OK. We're getting them and then we are _out of here_. I don't even know _why_ Harry wanted to come in the first place; this is _stupid_ and oh my _god_ – is that – _Greengrass_? Are you alright?"

Daphne's elbows have given way and she is, once more, lying spread-eagled in the grass. Hermione's face cuts into her line of vision, and Daphne laughs as she's instantly reminded of every tight-lipped teacher that Pansy had irreverently sent crying out of the classrooms in their ridiculously expensive prep school. "Granger," she smiles, and smiles a little wider (breaking out the dimples!) as Frog-brief's face and floppy hair comes into view. "I want his number."

Granger looks confused before Daphne flails her hand in Frog-brief's face, almost taking his eye out. "You want _Neville_ 's number?"

"Yes!"

Granger's eyebrows rise so far up her forehead that they are almost lost in that nest that she charitably refers to as _hair_. "Neville _Longbottom_?"

Daphne chuckles and turns to Frog-briefs, lowering her lashes coquettishly. " _Is_ it?"

If Frog-briefs was pink before, he's beet red now.

" _God_ , Greengrass, he's in our Biology 102 lab. Have you honestly never noticed him until now?"

She ignores Granger and drops Frog-briefs a wink. "Do you want to do it like they do on the discovery channel?"

Granger sputters and Frog-briefs gapes, and Daphne feels incredibly smug for two seconds flat before Granger straightens her spine with a snap that Daphne was _sure_ would be audible. "I'm going to get your clothes, Neville. And then we are _leaving_."

There's a brief silence as Daphne and Frog-briefs stare at each other in the wake of Hermione Granger's exasperation. "I _am_ going to get your number, Frog-briefs," Daphne assures him amiably. "Just not now, because I'm super drunk and I think I dropped my mobile in Draco's mother's floral centrepiece. Longbottom, Neville, Bio. Right?"

Frog-briefs nods dumbly, and she likes the way he's looking at her, eyes glued to her face instead of her chest (which she's pretty certain is heaving from all the deep breathing she's doing to avoid throwing up – because she really is a bit more than three-quarters drunk). She likes the way he's smiling at her, a little scared and a lot shy. She's drunk, yes, but she thinks she could really like him. And not just because of his abs – which are really, fucking _bitchin_.

They're still gazing at each other when they're interrupted by –

" _Christ_ , Daph, this isn't fucking Romeo and Juliet. Shoo, Frog-briefs. We'll take it from here."

Daphne allows Theo to brace her arm around his shoulders and spots the fond worry in Pansy's eyes as she slides her arm around her waist. Granger is determinedly bouncing on the balls of her feet in an attempt to reach the khaki pants, and it's actually fucking _hilarious_ , but all that Daphne cares about when she turns her head to look behind her is Frog-briefs, face soft, on his feet and watching her as she's borne away like a fucking casualty.

She turns away when her neck starts to ache and concentrates on putting one foot in front of the other.

 _Longbottom. Neville. Bio. Longbottom. Abs. Neville. Neville. Neville._

* * *

 **A/N: Daphne is my STAR, by the way.**


	4. May It Please the Court (MF)

**Pairing: Percy Weasley x Daphne Greengrass  
Setting: Law school AU  
Written for: This is a birthday present to provocative-envy, who'd blithely requested "HAPPY PERCY". **

* * *

Percival Ignatius Weasley can recite the headnotes of every case that has been on his reading lists for the past two years. He can name every lord benched in the Supreme Court, the Privy Court, and the fucking Senior Courts of England and Wales from 1993 onwards. He can, upon given a set of facts, reason the judgment out the exact way that the leading judgment did it (albeit only about seventy two per cent of the time, but that's still a pretty decent hit rate).

Tl;dr: Percy Ignatius Weasley knows a whole lot.

What he _doesn't_ know, however, is _which forgotten but definitely evil deity_ that he might have offended in order to have landed _Daphne Princess Greengrass_ as his partner for this moot court module. This _only five people out of forty get As_ module. This _doubles as the selection trials for the Jessup team_ module.

This _Daphne is probably taking because it involves a field trip to the Hague_ module.

(It's quite probable. He sits behind her in class and she's been surfing through _Tripadvisor_ looking for sights to see. She has an actual _Excel sheet_ that she's titled "Nether Say Netherlands".)

She has two windows open side-by-side on her screen at all times: one is a Facebook chat box with someone named Pansy who swears a lot and types almost exclusively in upper case, and the other is, on a rotating basis, either ASOS, Shopbop, or Amazon. She never pays attention when the professor is going through hypotheticals and picks all the easy questions to answer when he calls for suggested solutions. She can pronounce all the French that litters the ICJ judgments fluently, but he catches her Googling case summaries in the three instances that she has been cold-called.

She is, Percy decides, a _liability._

He tries to keep his calm, he really does – there is nothing tackier than leaning into the whole _gingers have tempers_ trope – but he almost pitches a hissy when his name is read out together with hers and she flashes him the sweetest, most hopeful smile that he's ever seen grace the face of an actual flesh-and-blood person and _not_ a statue of the Madonna.

That is, the mother-of-Jesus-H-Christ Madonna. Not uncomfortably-stripping-Justin-Timberlake Madonna.

During their first meeting before the deadline for the preliminary draft of their written submissions, Percy damn near bursts a blood vessel when she asks where _exactly_ Ruritania is on the world map. She furrows her precisely plucked eyebrows and widens her delicately winged Cambridge-blue eyes and she looks like she legit has _no fucking idea_ that Ruritania is as artificial as the sugar in the Coke Zero that she's got condensing all over a hardcover edition of _Cheshire, Fifoot and Furmston's Law of Contract_. But, _but_ – there's a gleam in her eye that hints at a test that a very small, extremely _sub_ conscious part of Percy is uneasily certain that he's failing.

He drops in at the university bar and eavesdrops on various conversations until he learns that she's the eldest daughter of some obscenely rich and oddly obscure property developer and that her hair is insured for ten thousand pounds. He then promptly leaves, fifteen quid poorer and extremely disgruntled. He doesn't know if that last piece of gossip is true (because _what_ , does that even _happen_ outside of Mean Girls?), but since it's _Daphne_ , he wouldn't be shocked if it is.

At their second meeting, he turns up with a complete skeletal outline of their answer (with alternative arguments colour-coded according to relevance), the _entire_ Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties (bound and tabbed), and thirty-one cases on border disputes between ex-colonial territories.

Daphne brings her eleven-inch MacBook Air and a venti hojicha latte to the table.

She smiles amiably as he goes through his skeletal point by point, and he tries not to show how flustered he is with _actual tangible frustration_ at how he's basically pulling all the weight for this module. It has _nothing_ to do with how the dark, glossy mauve of her lipstick makes her skin look even more flawless than it usually is, or how her hair is golden and gleaming and smells like flowers and spring and _strawberries_. It also has absolutely nothing to do with how she's casually (and almost certainly _accidentally_ ) destabilising and unsettling and basically _unravelling_ some of his reasoning ( _but does sovereignty_ really _require recognition, or is that just a practical formality?_ ) before leaving the meeting early to go for a yoga class. He wants to ask her if she's aware that she's been flashing him a lot of her chest while she was leaning over his arm to read his work, but she disappears before he can decide if he should say _breasts_ or _boobs_ or _tits_.

Instead of doing his Equity and Trusts readings for the following week, Percy trawls through the Cheltenham Ladies' College website archives in an attempt to find out if she'd done well enough to have her A'level grades posted on the internet. The exam results page refuses to load, so he gives up and navigates through the co-curricular activities and sports sections. He unearths a picture of a make-up free and unaccountably smug-looking Daphne hefting a tennis cup and wonders, inappropriately, if she's the sort of player who _grunts_.

The thought comes from _way_ out of the blue and it's random enough to stop him in his tracks and cause him to slam his laptop shut in disgust. He's _Percy Weasley_. He doesn't _do_ random thoughts and he's _way_ past puberty. Way. Past. He most certainly isn't comparing the photo of her with his recollection of the real thing and meditating on whether they'd airbrushed the light dusting of pale freckles over her nose and cheekbones out or if the picture's resolution just wasn't high enough to capture them.

He is _not_.

So, why, he asks himself despairingly, _why_ is he looking out the little window of the study room overlooking the corridor every six seconds in order to catch sight of Daphne's approach? Why is he compulsively adjusting his glasses so that they sit _perfectly_ square on his _super closely shaved_ face? Why did he bother with this ridiculous paisley-print button down shirt that Ginny had assured him is _fashionable_ and _makes (him) look fit_?

To his everlasting and unmitigated horror, this chain of questions elicits an actual _wail_ from the depths of his being. The fallout from this is exacerbated by the fact that while he is distracted by his distress, Daphne chooses to materialise.

She sets a can of Red Bull down inches from his nose and he's sure that he hears her muffle a giggle as she sets her distressed leather Balenciaga bag down and slides an ominously thick stack of paper towards him. Percy sits up rapidly, trying to regain some measure of dignity, and frowns as he examines her offerings. "What's this?"

"Red Bull," she replies, languidly booting up her laptop. "You might need a boost of energy after all that moaning."

He scowls and tries not to dwell on the double entendre that he's sure is deliberate. "I meant the forest that you've sacrificed."

Daphne doesn't even blink. "They're notes for the module from last year's Jessup team. I also just sent you a soft copy of them. I believe that an outlined solution to issue six can be found in the ninth chapter – that's page three hundred and ninety-four in the PDF document."

He schools his expression into something that is _hopefully_ disapproving. "Using others' notes takes away from the intellectual achievement of doing the work yourself."

She makes a dismissive sound in her throat and Percy tries not to look too obviously at the way a smirk is tugging at her lips. "We're still going to be doing _plenty_ of work, Weasley. But this way, we get a shortcut and a better shot at reaching Washington next semester."

Percy opens his mouth, closes it, and then opens it again. "We?"

Daphne shrugs. "You're intelligent enough. I think we'd be good together on the Jessup team. Your drafting is solid, even if your arguments are predictable and occasionally one-dimensional. But that's why we're a _team_." In the gobsmacked silence that follows, she glances over at him appraisingly ( _have her eyes_ always _been that clear?)_ and quirks an eyebrow. "Also, I like your shirt."

Percy blames what happens next on a lack of sleep, too much caffeine, and the infuriatingly challenging tilt of Daphne's chin when her eyes linger a heartbeat too long over the stretch of fabric spanning his shoulders.

While she doesn't seem surprised at his sudden and reckless lunge across the table, he notes, with no small amount of satisfaction, that her fingers clutch almost greedily at his collar and she lets a breathless, quiet moan escape into his mouth before she commences kissing him back.

"You're so _dense_ ," she murmurs, teeth sharp against his bottom lip, and for all the blood pumping in his ears, Percy can hear her voice reverberating in his bones. "Promise me that you'll try to be a little sharper at Jessups, mm? I'd rather not lose points just because you're too oblivious to see them."

Percy pulls away just enough to look her in the eyes, and he finally reads the amusement that's been dancing in them for the past six weeks. She smiles her Madonna smile again, and instead of being irritated, he feels his heart do a little awkward flop onto its side (like a cat that's just decided that it'll give in to a belly rub). He wants to say a lot of things but he figures, what the _hell_ , she probably knows. Daphne probably knows everything, and the things that she doesn't bother with are probably not particularly important anyways. So he settles for kissing her again on the tip of her daintily freckled nose before turning back to his work. Their work. _Theirs._

"Page three hundred and ninety-four, you said?"


	5. Crème Fraîche (FF)

**Pairing: Ginny Weasley x Pansy Park(inson)**  
 **Setting: Coffeeshop AU**  
 **Written for: dorkfitz**

* * *

When Ginny scheduled all her classes to be in the afternoons so that she could take on all the morning shifts at the campus café, she did not factor in having to deal with Daphne Greengrass.

Daphne waltzes in at eight-fucking-fifteen _on the dot_ every single weekday, blonde hair perfectly coiffed and lips perfectly glossed and skin perfectly unblemished. Ginny will, instinctively, huddle down a little in her oversized apron and fight the urge to rub at her freckles before promptly disintegrating into self-loathing for feeling that way.

She's Ginny-fucking-Weasley. She plays varsity touch rugby and she's _fabulous_.

Daphne then proceeds to order the same drink, _every_ time: a skinny, soy caramel macchiato with a double shot of espresso and extra whip (then why the actual fuck does she want it skinny?), and cute latte art.

For real.

It's going to be covered by whipped cream anyways and Daphne Greengrass wants _cute latte art_. At _eight-fucking-fifteen_ in the morning.

Ginny always smiles as brightly as she can without actually throwing up before proceeding to make a non-skinny soy caramel macchiato, _single shot_ , and with only a _burst_ more whip than usual. She leaves out the latte art.

And that's how she earns $7.60 every morning, like clockwork.

At least, until Pansy Park starts coming in with Daphne. Then she earns $9.30 every morning, like clockwork, in addition to dealing with the cloud of resulting frustration that Pansy wafts in with her like a spritz of _Gucci Guilty_.

Pansy is tall, has cheekbones that Ginny could dive off from, and is the cheerleading squad's best hope for nationals. Ginny's seen her in action, drunk off her ass at a frat party that she only got invited to because her ex and her brother are apparently _super popular_ or some shit. Pansy had taken a shot of tequila, kicked off her heels, and executed a perfect _front handspring step out, round off back handspring step out, round off back handspring, full twisting layout_ down the driveway of Gryffindor house.

So, yeah. Pansy the athlete is all kinds of fucking awesome.

But she also accuses Ginny of over-roasting the coffee beans at least thrice a week, pays for her $1.70 drink with fifty-dollar notes, and consistently refers to her as _Jenny_ despite the name-tag that she's got sewn on to her apron.

And Ginny _knows_ that Pansy fucking knows her _name_ , at least, because she's caught her checking out her boobs.

Twice, in today's transaction.

After making a snide comment about how the touch rugby pre-season games haven't been going particularly well.

Ginny flushes red and her hand slips on the handle of the French press and she can see Pansy half-hidden behind Daphne's gigantic Céline tote bag, tapping her perfectly manicured nails on her thigh whilst scrutinising the redness that creeps up Ginny's neck.

"Maybe we'd do better if our cheerleaders _actually_ came to cheer for us," she snipes, sloshing coffee over the rim of the takeaway cup and not bothering to wipe the drip away.

Daphne smiles beatifically. "Cheerleading at college cock-comparisons is not a priority for varsity cheerleaders," she admonishes, as if quoting from a source. Ginny chokes on absolutely nothing, and Pansy winces minutely, but all Daphne does is beam at them both, collect her coffee, and swan out of the shop.

Ginny slides Pansy's long black over the counter to her with more force than strictly necessary. Pansy catches it in a long-fingered hand before gently blotting at the smear of coffee on the side of the cup with a napkin.

It's a Friday morning, and the coffee shop is distressingly empty. Ginny is suddenly gripped by the urge to turn off the disgustingly cheerful music that she'd put on in an effort to feel more awake – because she's _definitely_ awake enough now, being close enough to reach out and touch the beauty mark hovering just above the curve of Pansy Park's lip.

"I saw you at Gryffindor," she finally admits. "Gymnastics is definitely a priority."

Pansy's expression turns sly. "I knew you were watching."

Ginny was pink before, but now she's blushing so hard that she frantically wonders if she can get sunburn from the inside out. "Bring the cheerleaders for our home game next week," she manages to say, "and I'll make it worth your while."

Pansy only smirks at her before strolling out.

* * *

When Ginny discovered the entire cheerleading squad out on the stands for the pre-season game against last year's state runner-ups, she did not factor in being nigh on _attacked_ by a back-flipping Pansy Park, who then proceeded to kiss her full on the mouth.

 _For luck_ , she whispers, but the game is the furthest thing from Ginny's mind because Pansy is warm and solid and tastes like sweet coffee and cherries.

They win the game – _barely_ – but that's not the triumph that Ginny brings home that day.

Pansy tags along to open the coffee shop with her the next morning, and informs her that Daphne would appreciate it if she'd start adding the extra shot to her macchiato, now.

Ginny adds more whipped cream as a bonus.


	6. Into the Breach (MF)

**Pairing: Lucius x Narcissa**  
 **Setting: War**  
 **Written for: clragonglass**  
 **Prompt: things you said when you thought i was asleep / things you said when you were scared**

* * *

Here's a secret for you: Draco Malfoy was an accident.

Narcissa is twenty-four years old and swallowing screams as she watches her schoolmates tear their skin from their bones while a madman casually waves a wand around and smiles benignly down at them. Bellatrix routinely brings young Muggle boys home _for sport_ , and she can hear them crying at night, their sobs not quite drowned out by her sister's and brother-in-law's sick, mad laughter.

She is a daughter of House Black and she knows that even in peacetime, families hurt their children. She swears that she will not bring a child into a world this broken.

So she brews illegal contraceptive potions in her bathroom sink and bites her tongue when her new husband is tortured for not yet producing a pureblood heir. He's always rough when he takes her, now, eyes wild and arms shaking from the aftershocks of the cruciatus.

She runs out of bloodwort one day, and that's all it takes.

* * *

She is not ashamed to say that she would have gotten rid of it if the Dark Lord had not cast a pregnancy test that night in a bid to mock Lucius for his infertility. Her heart grows cold in her chest when his wand bathes her belly in gold light.

Her husband is ecstatic. Bellatrix leads the charge down to the nearby village to steal children for their revels.

Narcissa weeps, and she tells them it is from joy.

 _I would have killed it to protect it,_ she confesses into Lucius's back when the manor is finally quiet – a thick, _sated_ kind of quiet that leaves a coat of filth around the insides of her lungs.

She turns away before she can see his ribs collapse on a breath.

* * *

Draco is born two minutes after midnight in early June while the Dark Lord is downstairs murdering the McKinnons.

Lucius wants to name him Abraxas, after his father, but Narcissa says _over my dead body_.

She names him after the stars. She prays that he will live his life removed from the base _ugliness_ of war on earth. She prays that he will have the wisdom to guide himself.

* * *

The Dark Lord falls, and Narcissa dismantles the death spell over her son's cradle that she'd rigged to go off in the event of her passing.

She and Lucius pretend that the dark years never happened. She lives with the guilt of being ready to kill her child to save him from the Dark for the rest of her life, and prays that Draco will never know war.

Then the Dark Lord rises and folds her sixteen-year-old son into his embrace.

The world goes to shit again.

* * *

Lucius is different in this war.

He does the bare minimum required to protect his family in his family's house, and while Narcissa notices this, the Dark Lord does too.

Then he miscalculates and ends up in Azkaban, and her son offers himself to the devil to save her from a wand at her neck.

Narcissa weeps, and she tells them it is from pride.

She wants to say that she would have died to protect him, but the time for that magic has passed.

* * *

They lose sight of Draco in the last battle, and she curses herself for giving him her wand when she should have used it to bind him to her side.

 _Potter lives_ , she murmurs to Lucius as they trundle along behind a heartbroken Hagrid carrying a very alive Harry Potter.

He casts his eyes to the towers looming ahead of them, and she can read the despair in his face. The moment that Potter stumbles to his feet, they are all dead. Narcissa would be lying if she says she isn't terrified.

 _So we will run_ , Lucius whispers back.

And that is how they are recorded in that last, frantic skirmish: the two Malfoys, screaming for their son with their hands open and empty, dodging wand fire from both sides.

 _I would die for you_ , Narcissa promises.

She runs.


	7. Green Thumb (MF)

**Pairing: Draco Malfoy x Hermione Granger (dramione)**  
 **Setting: Modern AU**  
 **Prompt: 'i found you sleeping on my balcony when i went out to water my plants why are you here and more importantly how did you get here we're eighteen floors up' au**

* * *

Draco Malfoy _hates_ plants.

Unless he can eat them – preferably in something that _isn't_ a salad – he thinks they're pointless and time-consuming and _messy_. Yes, there is the whole _trees are important for the environment_ thing and the _flowers are necessary for centrepieces_ thing and the _bouquets are pretty much the way to go when you're supposed to apologise for something and you have no idea what for_ , but those plants are reared for and dealt with by _other people_.

In other words, not him.

So, to be more precise, Draco Malfoy hates having to get up every morning a full fifteen minutes earlier (even on _Sundays!_ ) to care for the house plants that Pansy and his mother unloaded onto him during his housewarming party. To be fair, his mother also unloaded a blissfully comfortable cream-coloured Italian leather sofa, a seventy-inch TV, and a two-hundred dollar gift card to be used at Whole Foods. Pansy just unloaded the plants.

 _That's what you get for making friends with people named after flowers_ , he grouses sourly as he lugs his stupid fuchsia watering can ("Champagne Showers!" is emblazoned in bright yellow over its side – thanks for that, Theo) over from the kitchenette to the balcony doors and tried not to drip water all over his fluffy white shag rug.

Still grumbling, he drags the curtains back from the sliding glass doors – _the sunlight feels like an actual physical solid, omfg_ – unlocks them, and steps out onto his irritatingly green but refreshingly windy balcony.

And then he trips over a huddled bundle at his feet and the watering can flies into a potted ficus.

Which knocks into a dieffenbachia.

Which topples onto a fiddleleaf fig.

Which proceeds to fall on top of a neatly-lined up row of primly potted flowers.

By the time Draco manages to draw a horrified breath, his once merely irritatingly green garden is now both irritatingly green _and_ in complete disarray.

The thing at his feet makes a small chirping sound once the last crash dies away and Draco backs away as if burned.

It's a _girl._

 _Granted_ , he thinks critically as she sits up and glances around her with an expression that's nothing short of complete dread, _she's more hair than she is girl. And she's more coat than both of that put together._

He clears his throat and reminds himself that he is _Draco Malfoy_ and that means that he should always sound cool. In control. Unflappable. Suave. Even if he's in a woolly green bathrobe and cotton pyjamas with dragons all over them.

He takes a deep breath.

" _What?_ " he squawks. _So much for that_. But he just winces and keeps on going. "Who _are_ you? Are you homeless? Why are you on my balcony? How did you _get_ onto my balcony, Jesus-fucking-Christ, we're on the _eighteenth floor-_ "

The girl huffs dramatically. Slinging the coat over an arm, she begins to struggle to her feet. Draco automatically extends a hand, and she looks up warily before cautiously taking it.

Her hand is smooth and soft and _tiny_. Draco drops it like a hot potato once she's managed to stand.

 _She's_ tiny, he notes. The top of her head just clears the middle of his chest – so she should be about an inch shorter than that without all that ridiculous hair. She's olive-skinned and big-eyed and dressed in a tight red dress that wouldn't look out of place in a nightclub – but the sensible black flats that lie discarded in a corner of his balcony certainly would be.

"Well?" he demands, trying to look like he's not at all interested in the light dusting of freckles across her nose and cheekbones. "Who, why, and how. In that order."

She wrings her hands, looking faintly embarrassed, and Draco is suddenly aware that there are goose pimples peppering her bare arms.

He sighs.

"Come inside, have some tea, and do some _actual_ explaining."

* * *

Her name is Hermione Granger, and she had _left a bad date_ by crabbing along a ledge that runs around the building. Draco ducks out onto his balcony again to see what _ledge_ she's talking about, and his estimation of her nerve leaps about ten points while his assessment of her sense of self-preservation drops about twenty.

He arches a pale blonde eyebrow upon re-entering the apartment and tries not to look like he's too bothered by the destruction just outside. " _Leaving a date_? You couldn't do that through the front door? And if it went as badly as to warrant a departure _that_ death-defying, surely you should have called the police or something? Or, you know, _woken me up when you knew that you'd have to run into me eventually_?"

She looks a little more than just _faintly_ embarrassed now, and stares resolutely into her mug of English Breakfast. "I, err. I was thinking of having a… a one night stand. And then when he was in the bathroom I couldn't go through with it, and I didn't want him to hear me leave and chase me down, so I just escaped through the open balcony doors."

Draco snaps his mouth shut when he realises that he's gawping. "You're an _idiot_ ," he informs her briskly.

She looks miserable. "I know. It's just – I was so _furious_ earlier last night, you know?"

Draco gets the sense that there's an Ex and a Story involved, and while he usually doesn't actually give a shit about girls and their baggage, he feels unaccountably angry that someone has hurt this tiny, well-spoken, _frankly fit_ little human.

He closes his eyes and pinches the bridge of his nose. Trust the universe to dump a girl he's high-key attracted to on the balcony of his bachelor pad and leave him wanting to ask her out without sounding predatory or creepy. He cracks open an eyelid – she's now gulping the tea down like it's the elixir of life (which is, coincidentally, how he feels about tea in general; maybe they're made for each other?), and he's fascinated by the long line of her throat.

She sets the mug down and sighs before looking back up at him. "May I use your bathroom? Also, let's just go for breakfast. I suppose the likelihood of you having anything edible in here is negligible."

Draco thinks guiltily about his mother's gift card lying unused in his cutlery drawer.

Then – " _Breakfast_?" he repeats, dumbly.

She stretches and brushes a wisp of hair out of her eyes (they're a remarkably clear shade of amber). "Breakfast."

"You don't even know my name," he says, and the corners of her lips twitch upwards. "And it- it's not _proper_ for me to take a girl I found on my balcony out for breakfast."

"Who, why?" she asks. "In that order."

"Draco Malfoy. And it's just _weird_!"

She sighs again before standing. "You don't look like a serial killer, I really am hungry, and I actually did go out last night looking to meet new people. New _decent_ people. So I guess I have. Now if you'll excuse me, I _have_ to pee."

She brushes past Draco and slips into his bathroom, shutting the door gently.

He stares after her, feeling dazed. He knows he's being incredibly optimistic, but if this works out – _hell_ , if this goes beyond five dates – he'll have to send Pansy and his mother gift baskets.


	8. Sutures (MF)

**Pairing: Pansy Parkinson x Blaise Zabini**  
 **Setting: Post War**  
 **Written for: Jade (pureblocds)**

* * *

Blaise doesn't say anything when he walks into his kitchen one morning to find Pansy Parkinson curled up against his kitchen island. Sure, he has a minor heart attack, yes, he briefly worries about how secure his wards are, and yeah, he hasn't seen her in _years_ so it's kind of a shock to see how much she's _changed_.

But, if he's completely honest with himself, he isn't very surprised that she's come to him.

He transfigures a dishtowel into a blanket and drapes it over her before making waffles for two.

* * *

Breakfast is completely silent.

He eyes the way she drowns her plate in honey and the clench of her knuckles as she saws through her waffles, separating them into individual squares. She efficiently lops the green cap off each strawberry and her fingers shake when she reaches for the bowl of whipped cream that he's wisely set beside her plate.

She's different, this Pansy. She isn't the girl he'd grown up with all those years ago in a maze of dungeons beneath a school that had hated them. She isn't the frightened, shrill teenager who'd just wanted _peace_ , and _quiet_ , and for _everything to be over_. She isn't the cool, poised society wife that he'd watched her become right after the war, letting Draco Malfoy promise her things that he'd never intended to deliver.

She's different from any Pansy he'd known when he'd left Britain four years ago, unable to bear the memories and the papers and the oppressive, insular _heaviness_ of English judgment.

This Pansy's pale skin is made even paler by the swirls of ink she's had etched into her flesh. There's nothing as crude or foul as a dark mark, _no._ There's a vine of stars crawling up her leg that disappears into the frayed hem of her denim cut-offs. There's a grove of black-hearted pansies splashed across her left forearm. Her right arm is a kaleidoscope of geometric tessellations interrupted by tiny mandalas.

Her hands are speckled with smaller, almost random designs, but the precise, leering skull that she's gotten inked on her glaringly bare left ring finger makes him feel like he's inhaled a bucket of ice water.

She catches him looking and curls her fingers into a fist before shoving another waffle square into her mouth.

He lowers his gaze and debates the merits of crucio-ing Malfoy and Granger, but figures that she wouldn't thank him for it.

Pansy doesn't need him to fight her battles for her.

She's never needed him that way.

* * *

Three days later, he finds Pansy sitting cross-legged on the shag rug in his living room, manually and methodically shredding the society section of the _Prophet_.

There's not enough of the editorial left to jigsaw together into a whole picture, but Blaise knows that it's most likely a snapshot of the new Granger-Malfoys, giddy with love and symbolic in the joining of the light and the dark after the war.

He settles himself down in front of her and waits.

Her mouth twists, and she _incendios_ the pile of paper dust wandlessly.

"I can't hate them," she finally confesses, voice hoarse with disuse. "I hate my parents, for selling me into a redeemed name. I hate his parents, for playing on familial duty and grasping at my money. But I can't hate _them._ " She scratches at the tiny infinity loop on her neck, over her pulse point. "They are what they are, and I was just in the way."

Her eyes are flinty but unfocused, and her next words follow slower, as if they are rising from a great depth. "They were together at Hogwarts. They were separated by the war, but they loved each other still. They loved each other all throughout his marriage. All throughout _my_ marriage. I thought – I thought he was mine; I thought he was over her, and I thought he really wanted to try. But then he didn't, and so I stopped trying, and I put all three of us out of our misery."

Then she laughs, hard and grating. "At least, I put the two of them out of their misery. Not that they were very miserable when Draco and I were married, though. I hadn't even realised that they were still fucking until Theo told me." Blaise makes out the outline of a nazar hidden behind her right ear when she turns her head to glare out of the window. "More fool me."

There's a brief silence while they both watch the sun set over Blaise's vineyard. The room is almost completely darkened when Blaise scrapes up the courage to speak.

"My mother murdered my father," he tells her quietly. "She loved him but she poisoned him. He was a muggle-born. He told her that he was a halfblood."

Pansy looks faintly repulsed and incredibly horrified. "She killed him for being a _muggle-born_?" She's holding on to herself, clawing her nails into the weave of her distressed knit jumper. Blaise wants to pry her fingers free, but he just runs the pad of his thumb over a seam in the parquet floor.

He looks up at her, eyes dark, and glances pointedly at the skull on her ring finger.

"She killed him for lying."

* * *

He rips the envelope from the eagle owl's leg and tosses it back out into the morning without bothering to give it a treat. It hoots in indignation, but is too well-mannered to do anything else but eye him balefully for a couple of seconds before going on its merry way. Blaise slams the window shut and takes a moment to calm himself before carefully slicing the top of the envelope open with his wand.

The penmanship is perfect, but he notes the smudges from where Draco folded the parchment without letting the ink dry first. He claims to be worried about Pansy – apparently she'd disappeared right before his wedding to Granger – and she hasn't been seen anywhere.

Blaise is sure that Draco cares about Pansy. They all care – in varying degrees – about each other. Snakes huddle together to keep warm.

But Draco has forfeited his right to any kind of information about his ex-wife.

When Pansy stumbles into the kitchen, yawning and rumpled, Blaise has already Vanished the missive and is in the process of making perfectly scrambled eggs.

* * *

She kisses him two weeks later, when they're curled up in front of the fire with a bottle of wine after a long day harvesting grapes.

Her lips are soft and taste like alcohol and strawberries, but Blaise isn't a teenager any more. He isn't fifteen, he isn't sixteen, and he isn't seventeen. He holds a fist tight around his heart and doesn't breathe for the long second that she's got her mouth pressed to his.

He feels like he's drowning, and when she pulls back, stung, vulnerable, and humiliated, he resists the impulse to lunge over and bury his nose in her shoulder.

He'd spent half of his childhood being what Pansy needed. Blaise digs his heels in and lifts his chin.

"I'm done with being your backup," he tells her, and he catalogues the way she flinches with the cool, unflappable detachment that had been legendary in the Slytherin dungeons. "If you want me, you want _me_."

Something flickers in Pansy's eyes, and she has the grace to look slightly ashamed. "I've had years to think," she says, gaze fixed on a point over his right shoulder. "I know what I want."

Blaise laughs. Half of him is _furious_ that she's presumptuous enough to think that he still feels the same way – that he still would brave Voldemort and Grindelwald and Gryffindors during Quidditch season just to have her hand in his and his name on her lips in the dark of the night.

She knows what he's thinking and flushes a dull, unattractive red. "You wouldn't have let me stay if you didn't still want me," she points out, and he snorts sourly into his glass of merlot.

Because other half of Blaise is resigned to the fact that Pansy's arrogance – alive and well even when she's broken and bitter – will always be something that he loves about her.

Blaise loves a lot of things about her.

"Then stay," he says flatly, and watches the firelight cast shadows on Pansy's face. "No more creeping out in the early mornings. No more casual brush-offs in the corridors. No more running back to Draco every fortnight. Stay with _me_."

Pansy looks him squarely in the eye and finishes her glass of wine.

* * *

Blaise feels the oxygen drain from his blood and his tongue grow thick in his mouth when his bed dips under her weight.

She hasn't turned the lights on, but he can see the paleness of her cheek as she runs a hand through her freshly-shorn hair and he can smell her: one part citrus-scented soap, one part petrichor, and one part _Pansy_.

She rolls clumsily under the duvet and curls her toes against his shins. They're cold, but he doesn't shift away.

He tucks her head under his chin with a hand that barely trembles, and it's like the last decade had never happened. Pansy Parkinson is in his arms, and he sleeps better than he has since he ran away from her reception.

He breathes easier than he has in years.

* * *

 **A/N: Reviews are very, _very_ , _very_ welcome! xxx**


	9. Devil's Snare (FF)

**Pairing: Narcissa Black x Alice (pre-Longbottom) Fawley**  
 **Setting: Marauders era**  
 **Written for: muclbloods (now reghoulus)**

* * *

Before Alice Longbottom was a name whispered as the other half of a pair ( _the Longbottoms, yes, tortured into insanity, St Mungo's, batshit crazy_ ), before she birthed Neville ( _who could have been the Boy who Lived but was thankful to just be a boy who lived through a war_ ), and before she signed her wand to the service of her ministry ( _and her soul to the pursuit of equality, justice, and freedom_ ), she was Alice Fawley.

And she was in love with Narcissa Black.

But, before any of that:

Alice Fawley was Narcissa Black's best friend.

They'd grown up together, their parents had been in Slytherin together, they'd played with dolls and held tea parties and flown little toy brooms together, and they'd been the perfect little pureblood heiresses until Alice had gone and gotten herself sorted into Gryffindor.

Narcissa had avoided her for two weeks after the Sorting until Alice cornered her in a section of the library and informed her that she was still the same person and that the blood of friendship was thicker than the water of the womb.

 _No one can know_ , Narcissa had told Alice lowly. Andromeda had taken to hoarding pain potion in her wardrobe because word had leaked out to their parents that she'd been seen out and about with a Hufflepuff. A _Mudblood_ Hufflepuff.

Alice understood. Alice always understood.

* * *

Their first, second, third, and fourth years were spent in a blur of late-night library study sessions, early-morning picnics by the fringes of the Forbidden Forest, and giggly afternoons up in the Astronomy Tower, practising charms and transfiguring their homework into kittens. Or, rather, Alice would transfigure Narcissa's potions assignments into snakes, which Narcissa would then transfigure into kittens.

"I can't believe you hate snakes," Alice would say, amused. "You must be the most unpatriotic Slytherin in _centuries_."

Narcissa would sniff, cuddle a kitten close, and call Alice a bad word. That only made Alice guffaw, though, and Narcissa _loved_ making her laugh.

She'd always thought that all that Gryffindor fire always suited Alice; she was always laughing, always strong, always _bright_. In the cold and dark of the dungeon (especially during the winter), Narcissa would hold the memory of Alice's face close to warm herself to sleep.

* * *

Narcissa wouldn't exactly say that anything _changed_ in their fifth year. Things just – they just fell into place.

They had been walking back to the castle after a Hogsmeade visit just before Christmas. Narcissa had been happily munching on a chocolate bar as Irina Dolohov whined about how Claire Rosier was _stealing Alphard Black away from her_ (joke! Alphard didn't even like witches) when a knot of red ahead of her separated into two distinct beings and her brain supplied _Longbottom_ while something in her chest gasped _Alice_.

Narcissa came to a dead halt as Alice stepped away from Frank Longbottom and glanced in her direction.

And froze.

Dolohov furrowed her brow in confusion ( _why are we stopping while we're ankle-deep in slush?_ ) before catching sight of Alice and Longbottom. Her lips pulled up into a sneer and she caught at Narcissa's elbow, jostling her arm and knocking her chocolate onto the ground. "Let's go, Cissy. My nose isn't numb enough to block the stench of _blood traitors_."

Narcissa let Dolohov lead her away numbly, but all the feeling came back in the middle of the night when she'd just about jumped on Alice during their scheduled study time and threw up silencing charms around their hidden corner of the library.

" _Longbottom_ , Alice?" she'd shrieked, unattractively red and blotchy. "He's an idiot! Well-meaning, yes, but an _idiot_! He couldn't tell his left foot from his trachea!"

Alice had folded her arms stiffly and informed her that Frank was very good at transfiguration and DADA. Narcissa had thrown up her own in exasperation.

"He's a clumsy oaf and his mother is a harpy!"

Alice, who'd been speaking quietly, dropped her voice even lower. "I don't think that you're in any position to be comparing the kindness of mothers, Narcissa."

Narcissa's mouth snapped shut.

"What do you care if I'm going out with Frank, anyways? He's an OK bloke and he _worships_ me." Alice was glaring at the floor as she spoke, and her fingers were pressed so tightly into her upper arms that they were white.

" _I_ worship you," Narcissa had mumbled before she could stop it, and the words hung, loaded, in the space between them for a heartbeat. _Merlin_. She flushed and thought about taking them back, about blustering, about leaving abruptly and _never fucking looking at Alice Fawley again_ , but then the other girl looked up at her slowly, and something in her eyes flickered.

"I worship you, too," she'd admitted, before leaning in to kiss Narcissa full on the lips.

 _Oh._

* * *

In their sixth year, they took to spending a great deal more time together. _Alone_.

Alice's hands were in Narcissa's hair and her lips were on her throat and she couldn't breathe couldn't think _couldn't couldn't couldn't_ but Alice was murmuring into her pulse: _mine mine mine._

And as she clutched at her best friend, her lover, her fucking other half, she thought: _if my mother blasted Andromeda off the family tapestry for marrying a Mudblood, she will murder me where I stand_.

(But really, she mused, pupils blown and hands shaking in the dark of the forbidden forest, she didn't give a shit.)

Narcissa ran her fingers across Alice's shoulders and she didn't need to see them to map the freckles on her skin. She tilted her head up and mouthed her heart to the stars: _if my blood is pure, let my love be also_.

* * *

It didn't last, of course.

When Narcissa went home that summer and blithely informed her parents that she would prefer not to marry Lucius Malfoy, she found herself breathless for an entirely different reason.

She struggled to pull oxygen through her lungs as her fists clenched in the weave of the Persian rug beneath her, and thought _Alice Alice Alice_ as she watched her mother's shiny patent leather heels crunch onto the remains of the tea service that she'd knocked off the coffee table when she'd been writhing in agony. She coughed blood and her chest seized: _something is broken_ , she noted, and tried very hard to suppress the aftershocks of the curse.

Druella Black's wand dug painfully into the space between her youngest daughter's shoulder blades. "Do you care to repeat what you just said, darling?"

When Alice burst into her compartment on the Hogwarts Express after three months of silence, she drew up short upon finding Narcissa surrounded by Parkinson, Dolohov, and her cousin Rosier, as well as a multitude of wedding magazines.

She'd glanced up at the intrusion, expression bland. "May we help you, Fawley?"

And Alice had understood: she'd seen the _I'm sorry_ and _I'm not brave_ and _I can't do it_ and _it hurts_ and so she'd shaken her head mutely, closed the compartment door, and walked away.

 _I love you_.

* * *

The rest of their seventh year and the frantic interlude after it was documented in a string of short paragraphs in someone else's story. It is suffice to say that in that time, both women found something that they loved more than each other.

And that was no small thing.

The war was over and Narcissa was having tea with Bellatrix in her drawing room when the Aurors came.

"Arrest?" Narcissa had bleated, refusing to budge from her protective (and shielded) stance in front of Draco's cradle as a squad of hit wizards trampled over the remnants of their drawing room door. Her sister had been wrestled to the ground and was currently at the wrong end of a multitude of _incarcerous_ spells after a brief duel that had devastated half the room. Prodigious as Bellatrix was, even _she_ wasn't a match for a dozen Aurors who weren't that worried about property damage.

One of the Aurors thrust a newspaper under her nose, expression grim. "Do you not get the _Prophet_ in Wiltshire?"

 _My husband takes it up to his study and I only read it the day after_ , she'd wanted to explain, but she took the paper and promptly wished she hadn't.

 _Longbottoms. Tortured. St Mungo's. No news yet, but the prognosis is grim_.

Bellatrix was hauled up and marched past her. The Aurors slammed the front door on their way out and she heard Lucius smash a vase in his rage. Draco whimpered in his blankets.

Narcissa Malfoy gazed at the moving picture of Alice Longbottom, waving cheerfully at her from beside her husband, and found that her heart could still break.


End file.
